Trouble at the top: The construction of a tenant identity in the governance of social housing organizations

The project of citizen governance has transformed the social housing sector in England where 20,000 tenants now sit as directors on the boards of housing associations, but the entrance of social housing tenants to the boardroom has aroused opposition from the chief executives of housing companies and triggered regulatory intervention from government inspectors. This paper investigates the cause of these tensions through a theoretical framework drawn from the work of feminist philosopher Judith Butler. It interprets housing governance as an identificatory project with the power to constitute tenant directors as regulated subjects, and presents evidence to suggest that this project of identity fails to completely enclose its subject, allowing tenant directors to engage in ‘identity work’ that threatens the supposed unity of the board. The paper charts the development of antagonism and political tension in the board rooms of housing companies to present an innovative account of the construction and contestation of identities in housing governance

Agent-Based Simulation as an Implementation of Methodological Individualism

This paper investigates the relationship between methodological individualism (MI) and Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). We discuss and analyze a thesis defended by philosophers Caterina Marchionni and Petri Ylikoski (2013). The thesis maintains that, since MI is often considered to be a reductionist approach, it is confusing and meaningless to assume that ABS, which is a non-reductionist and emergentist explanatory model, is committed to MI. We reject this thesis arguing that, from a philosophical standpoint, addressing the problem of the consistency between MI and ABS from a strictly utilitarian perspective is unsatisfactory. We analyze this problem in more substantial terms, i.e. focusing on its more theoretical and conceptual aspects. Moreover, we maintain that ABS explanations must be regarded as individualist explanations and provide a set of logical and historical arguments against the widespread interpretation of MI in terms of reductionism

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Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

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Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

Analytical sociology and theories of the middle range

This book chapter is not available in ORA. Citation: Hedström, P. & Udehn, L. (2009). Analytical sociology and theories of the middle range. In: Hedström, P. & Bearman, P. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 25-50